By Brendan Boylan
If any of you have come across my writings previously, it will almost certainly have been in a sporting context. Predominantly over the past couple of decades on my own website – www.boylantalkssport.com as well as in several local and national publications.
The thing is though, even if you have happened upon some of my work on sporting matters, there is an ongoing possibility that you have already or will come across reference to farming somewhere along the way. That, to this day, still causes fascination and curiosity in some places. Along the lines of ‘How could somebody in a wheelchair find that type of thing interesting?’
Quite simply because I was reared around cattle, sheep and machinery and fell in love with it all. To the extent that, regardless of what others my age were ordering from the big man in the red suit when we were in that category, for me it was always model tractors or combines or other machines.
Once that phase of life passed however, to my utmost heartache, touch was sort of lost with the local farming fraternity until life’s road took another unexpected twist and contact was re-established with Pat Clarke and his family – with whom my brother worked for more than ten years. Even allowing for that, though, never in my wildest dreams would the chance of actually being a farmer in my own right be entertained.
Yet, therein lies another example of why you really should never say never. When my late father fell ill first a decade ago, myself and my brother, Paul, decided we’d buy a few cattle again. With the thinking being that it would give the boss man a bit of a lift or keep yours truly distracted if things went pear shaped.
Thankfully, it turned out to be very much the former. Which gave me five of the happiest years of my life. Until things went full circle again leaving me on the outside of farming looking in.
Regardless of what my own relationship with farming was to be, it has always been an ambition to write in a farming or agri-business publication. What could never have been envisaged, mind you, would be that it would be an illness connected to my disability which would send me back down the farming road again. Now read on…
What’s probably around a year ago now, yours truly was diagnosed as Diabetic. Part of the treatment for which is some amount of weight loss. As you can imagine, hitting that target when confined to a wheelchair is a different type of challenge. Which is where the administration of Ozempek comes in.
Thus we arrive at the point where farming re-enters the equation. For you see, the only way to manage weight loss is by weighing regularly. Which is more difficult than you might ever imagine for a wheelchair user.
Now, just for the record, the HSE do have wheelchair friendly scales in at least three locations but – you couldn’t make this up – they have nobody to operate them. Which left this corner in a bit of a pickle.
However, if you’re following the general trend of things here – especially given the time of year – it should be no surprise that I found the solution to the conundrum in a farmyard!
The premises of Tara Farms just outside of Dunboyne. It has always been a place of fascination for me, but I never thought it would be a health related matter which would get a wheel in the door for me. Or back in, to be more accurate.
One very brief excursion thence had been undertaken over three decades ago when a family connection was giving them a hand drawing grain during the harvest. Back then, for me, this was like being let through the Pearly Gates.
Reason being that at the time the bossman of Tara – Denis Feighery – had an entire fleet of Deutz Fahr DX Series tractors which I absolutely adored and still do. The two wheel drive DX 6.05 in particular as one of those (Clarke’s) was the last tractor I was ever able to get – or be put, more accurately – into.
Apart from that, there was also a plethora of Eureka wooden grain and/or silage trailers above. Oh, and about a thousand cattle for finishing at any one time!
What really set Tara Farms apart then though – and to be honest still does from a lot of operators – is that Denis had his own grain intake facilities (weighing and drying) at a time when few if any others had. With the majority drawing into merchants such as Drummonds or Lakeland or Farringtons in Rathcoffey, Co Kildare.
The late Paddy Donegan of Belgree Mulhuddart may also have had as he was famed for having new innovations, such as reversible ploughs, bigger ploughs, round balers and the like, before the rest. Denis would have been very similar and, certainly in the immediate locality, he was the first to have his own grain dryer.
So we arrive at June 6th, 2026. My return to Tara Farms. Thanks to farm manager Pat Reidy and his son David, when Pat had probably the strangest load he’s seen go across the weigh bridge in his four plus decades up there – one motorised wheelchair carrying yours truly!
As, the only way we could arrive at the desired conclusion was to get the Net weight of the wheelchair from the Owners Manual and take that figure from the Gross Tare off the scales.
So, while you might have heard of killing two birds with one stone, I like to think of it as taking out three – getting the weight, getting the wheels back into Tara Farms, and getting to write for a farm/agri-business related publication.
Hopefully the first of many on all fronts!
